Peter Sulski, Artistic Director, violin/viola, and violist for the string quartet QX, was a member of the London Symphony Orchestra for seven years and musical animateur to their educational Discovery Programme. Whilst in England, he served on the faculty of the Royal College of Music and Trinity College of Music and Drama. He founded Chapel Royal Concerts, in Brighton, England, in 1990.
In 1999, Mr. Sulski gave his solo recital debut in Carnegie Hall and in London's Queen Elizabeth Hall in 2001. After brief stints as Head of Strings of the Edward Said National Palestinian Conservatory, Bicommunal Coordinator for Chamber Music for the Cyprus Fulbright Commission, and Principal Violist of the Cyprus Chamber Orchestra, he returned to his native Worcester.
Current positions include membership of Boston Musica Viva, Principal Violist of Camerata New England, and Artistic Directorships of the Al Kamandjati Summer and Baroque Festivals in the Middle East. As an educator, he teaches violin, viola, and chamber music at Clark University, Assumption and Anna Maria Colleges, and College of the Holy Cross. He gives an annual viola masterclass at the Dartington International Summer School and directs a summer chamber music program at the University of Exeter. In 2009 Mr. Sulski was named as Cultural Envoy to the United States Consulate in Jerusalem.
Tracy Kraus, Executive Director/flute - "Supple and riveting.... elegant and adroit playing...dazzling" (Worcester Telegram) eloquently describe the playing of "the girl with the golden flute". Ms. Kraus, Executive Director/flute of the Worcester Chamber Music Society, has performed solo and chamber music in the United States and Europe. She has been featured on several live concert/interview radio broadcasts on WICN in Worcester, MA, WGBH in Boston, and has appeared at Carnegie Hall and Avery Fisher Hall in New York.
An active chamber musician, Ms. Kraus was the founder/artistic director of the New England based Abbott Chamber Players, who had been the recipients of several grants from the Massachusetts Council of the Arts and Humanities to promote chamber music in the Worcester public schools. She performs with the Brown Bag for Kids Ensemble and the Meet the Musicians Woodwind Quartet, both sponsored by TD Banknorth. Ms. Kraus has toured the United States successfully as a soloist, featuring the music of American and Russian composers and has appeared at both the Aspen and Tanglewood festivals. She is a member of the Mendocino Music Festival Orchestra (CA) and the Massachusetts Symphony Orchestra.
Currently, Ms. Kraus is on the faculties of the College of the Holy Cross, Clark University, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Massachusetts.
Maria Ferrante, soprano - “Maria Ferrante broke my heart Sunday night, “ wrote Richard Dyer of The Boston Globe of Ms. Ferrante’s performance of Madama Butterfly. Maria Ferrante has performed numerous roles in various capacities to overwhelming critical acclaim.
One of Franco Corelli's few students and winner of the Mario Lanza Voice Competition, Ms. Ferrante has performed more than 15 leading operatic roles, including Desmonda in Verdi's Othello, Mimi in Puccini's La Boheme, Violetta in Verde's La Traviata, Cio-Cio San in Puccini's Madame Butterfly, and Pamina in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte.
Equally at home on the concert stage, she has sung the leading soprano roles in Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem, Poulenc’s Gloria, Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass, Orff’s Carmina Burana, Verdi’s Requiem and Handel’s Messiah, among many other major choral works. In recital, she has appeared with pianists Gilbert Kalish and Lincoln Mayorga, with clarinetist Richard Stoltzman, with violinist Arnold Steinhardt of the Guarneri Quartet, and with Robert J. Lurtsema of WGBH, as well as many others. Composers Sheldon Harnick (who wrote Fiddler on the Roof), Arnold Black, Seymour Barab have collaborated in performance with her.
Performances include Respighi’s Il Tramonto with the New England String Ensemble, an appearance with the New York City Chamber Ensemble with guitar virtuoso Benjamin Verdery, and Villa-Lobos’ Bachianas Brasilieras No. 5 with the Boston Ballet, in Symphony Space in New York City and with Chamber Music of New England with First Prize Tchaikovsky winner, Sergey Antonov. She has made numerous orchestral appearances throughout the country, next to be heard as Madama Butterfly with the Florida Northwest Symphony as well as concert artist with The Mohawk Trail Concerts and recitalist at Mercyhurst College on Lake Erie.
Krista Buckland Reisner, violin - "...Excellent left hand.." (Toronto Star), "...lovely tonal bloom..." (LeDROIT) are words that describe the performances of violinist Krista Reisner. A musician of great diversity, she has toured across her native Canada as a recitalist, performed concertos in cities ranging from New York City to St. John's, Newfoundland, traveled to New Zealand with Canada's baroque group Arcadia and has created mullti-media works for herself involving dance and movement. She was Principal Second Violin of the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra and has been a member of the Arizona Opera and Santa Fe Opera Orchestras. In Boston, Krista is Concertmaster of Opera Boston and the Principal Second of Boston Modern Orchestra Project. She is also a tenured member of the Handel and Haydn Society and Boston Baroque period orchestras. She is one of Boston's leading new music violinists, working closely with many of Boston's leading composers including Thomas Lee, Theodore Antinou and appears regularly with the Fromm Players, and Hyperprism.
Amy Rawstron, violin, is a well known performer. In addition to a busy and varied career as a violinist, she maintains a private teaching studio, and coaches and conducts string ensembles at the Rhode Island Philharmonic Music School, Notre Dame Academy and Bryant University.
Alongside positions with Worcester Chamber Music Society, Arcadia Players and Rhode Island Philharmonic as Principal Second Violin, Amy has taken part in concerts and recordings with Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Barry White, Opera Providence, Boston Classical Orchestra, Rod Stewart, Boston Opera, Johnny Mathis, Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra, Aretha Franklin, Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Josh Grobin, Commonwealth Opera, Sarah Brightman, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, amongst many others. She recently appeared as Guest Concertmaster for the Rhode Island Philharmonic in their 2010 Summer Concert Series and also made appearances with the Key West Symphony Orchestra in Florida.
Amy began her violin studies at the age of eight, and soon began playing with the Young Performers program at the Longy School of Music, and at Apple Hill and Kneisel Hall Summer Programs as one of their youngest participants. She was first Principal Second, and later, Concertmaster of the Greater Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra. After graduating from the Walnut Hill School for the Arts, Amy earned a BA in Violin Performance from the Mannes College of Music, studying with Sally Thomas, Robert Koff and Roman Totenburg. She participated in masterclasses with Dorothy Delay, Glenn Dicterow, Julius Levine and Paul Doktor and continued her studies at the Meadowmount School of Music, and the Aspen, Tanglewood and Spoleto Music Festivals.
Rohan Gregory, violin, has cultivated a wide-ranging expertise in chamber music, new music and world music. He has played with the Apple Hill Chamber Players, the Ancora Ensemble and award-winning Boccherini Ensemble and was also a founding member for ten years of the Arden String Quartet, performing new music concerts in New York, Boston, Amsterdam and St. Petersburg, Russia. On the world music scene, Rohan has toured extensively. His travels have taken him to Europe with the Klezmatics, to Thailand with multi-ethnic flute player Abbie Rabinowitz, to India with the Indo-jazz group Natraj and to the U.S. west coast with Sophia Bilides Greek Folk Ensemble. Locally, Rohan is a member of the New England String Ensemble and Boston Modern Orchestra Project. He also coaches chamber music for the Walnut Hill School and the Greater Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra
Mark Berger , resident composer/violist, is very active in the Boston freelance scene and has performed with many of Boston’s finest ensembles, including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Pops Esplanade, Emmanuel Music, Boston Modern Orchestra Project and Boston Lyric Opera. An avid chamber musician, he is a member of Music at Eden’s Edge, has a duo partnership “The Two Composers” with pianist/composer Ketty Nez, and has been a guest artist with the Lydian String Quartet. Mark has performed at summer festivals such as Kneisel Hall and Tanglewood, where he was a member of the New Fromm Players, new music ensemble-in-residence.
Also a gifted composer, Mark’s works have been presented locally by the New York New Music Ensemble, Dinosaur Annex, ALEA III, Xanthos Ensemble, Music at Eden’s Edge, QX, and the Lydian String Quartet, as well as nationally and internationally by the the Third Coast Percussion Quartet, Ensemble Permutaciones (Mexico) and the Hellenic Ensemble of Contemporary Music (Greece). Mark has been awarded by ASCAP and he has received grants from NEFA and the Brannen Cooper Fund. Mark is currently on the music faculty at Clark University, UMass Lowell and Middlesex Community College.
David Russell, cello, Hailed as a “superb cellist” in the Boston Globe, David Russell maintains a vigorous schedule both as soloist and as collaborator in the U.S. and Europe. He was appointed to the teaching faculty of Wellesley College in 2005 and currently serves as Visiting Assistant Professor. He served as Assistant Principal 'cello with the Tulsa Philharmonic and on the teaching faculty of Oklahoma City University from 2001 to 2003. As a member of the Grammy-nominated Eaken Trio, formerly in residence at Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA, he has toured extensively in France, Germany, Italy and England. A strong advocate and performer of new music, Mr. Russell has performed with such ensembles as Phantom Arts Ensemble for American Music, Dinosaur Annex, Collage New Music, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Music on the Edge, AUROS Group for New Music, Firebird Ensemble, the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, Stony Brook Contemporary Chamber Players, and the Fromm Foundation Players at Harvard. He is a founding member of Furious Band, an ensemble devoted to the exploration and performance of works by young composers. Furious Band was the 2000 contemporary ensemble in residence at the Aspen Summer Music Festival.
Recent projects include the premieres of a new cello concerto by Laurie San Martin, a new concerto for quintet and orchestra by Derek Hurst with the Firebird Ensemble and Boston Modern Orchestra Project, new works for solo cello by Sam Nichols, Roger Zahab and Andrew Rindfleisch, a new work for cello and piano by Eric Moe, residencies at the University of California-Davis and the Icicle Creek Center for Chamber Music and, with Firebird, recordings of works by Lee Hyla and Tamar Diesendruck. Recent past projects included the premiere of Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon’s chamber opera Comala at the Bellas Artes in Mexico City, solo performances at Miller Theater at Columbia University, the Boston Conservatory, and the American Academy in Rome, U.S. premieres of works for solo cello by Harold Meltzer and Judith Weir, recordings of new works by Eric Moe, Eric Chasalow, Laurie San Martin, Allen Anderson and Edward Knight, masterclasses at the University of California-Davis, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the University of Alaska-Fairbanks and residencies at the University of South Carolina-Columbia and Tufts University. He teaches at the Cello Seminar, a summer program for study of contemporary cello music associated with Music from Salem and developed by Rhonda Rider. He has recorded for the Albany Records, New World Records and Composers Recordings labels.
Ian Watson , harpsichord/piano Described in the British national press as a performer with “virtuosic panache and brilliantly articulated playing”, and “a world-class soloist”, Ian Watson is a prominent figure at the highest levels of the international music scene. Artistic Director of the acclaimed period-instrument ensemble Arcadia Players and Chorus, Music Director of Commonwealth Opera, Principal Guest Conductor of Karlstad Baroque in Sweden and Music Director of the Cathedral of St. Paul, Worcester, Ian's versatility is revealed in the equal ease with which he performs the roles of orchestral conductor, choir director, organist, harpsichordist, pianist, teacher and public speaker.
Born in England in the Buckinghamshire village of Wooburn Common, Ian won a scholarship to the Junior School of the Royal Academy of Music in London, at the age of 14. He later won all the prizes for organ performance and others for piano accompaniment as well as the coveted Recital Diploma, the highest award for performance excellence and completing his studies with Flor Peeters in Belgium. As a distinguished graduate, he was honored in 1993, with an Associateship of the Royal Academy of Music, in recognition of his services to music and is a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists. Ian’s first major appointment was as Organist at St. Margaret's, Westminster Abbey, at the age of 19, a position he held for ten years and he has also held a number of prestigious positions in London including Organist of St. Marylebone Parish church, and Music Director of the historic Christopher Wren Church, St. James's Piccadilly.
Among Ian's many prestigious conducting engagements are: Monteverdi's Vespers at St. James's Palace in the presence of Her Majesty the Queen; Bach's B Minor Mass at the Rheingau Festival with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Orchestra and Chorus; the opening concerts of the newly renovated Châtelet Theater in Paris with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and assistant conductor to Sir John Eliot Gardiner in the Bach Cantata Pilgrimage performing all Bach’s Cantatas on the correct liturgical day in places where he lived and worked. He has appeared as organ, harpsichord and piano soloist or conductor with the London Symphony, London Philharmonic and Royal Philharmonic Orchestras, Scottish Chamber, English Chamber, Polish Chamber and Stuttgart Chamber Orchestras, Bremen Philharmonic, Rhein-Main Symphony, Orchestra, Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, Handel and Haydn Society, English Baroque Soloists, and The Sixteen amongst many others. He has also being featured on more than 200 recordings and film soundtracks including Amadeus, Polanski’s Death and the Maiden, Restoration, BBC‘s David Copperfield, and an award-winning CD with Renee Fleming.
Ian has had a career -long passion for opera, working first as a vocal coach and conductor at Glyndebourne, and subsequently conducting countless performances and productions throughout England, and internationally Sadler’s Wells, The Royal Festival Hall, Bremen Opera, Giessen Opera, the Komische Opera, Berlin, houses in France and Scandinavia, and as a Principal Conductor with the Darmstadt State Opera in Germany in repertoire from Monteverdi’s Orfeo to Richard Strauss‘s Elektra.
Highlights of the upcoming 2010-11 includes Bach’s Mass in B minor with Arcadia Players and continuation of their survey of Beethoven Symphonies using period-instruments, directing concerts with the Handel and Haydn Society in Boston, and appearances with The Sixteen at the Edinburgh International Festival in Scotland.
William Ness , piano and organist, is currently the Minister of Music and Arts at First Baptist Church, an American Baptist Church, of Worcester, Massachusetts where he conducts three singing choirs and two bell choirs. He has two degrees from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and has done further study at the University of Iowa. His organ teachers have been Jennie Satre, Robert Speed, Robert Clark, Robert Glasgow, and Delbert Disselhorst. While at the University of Michigan he won the Graduate Concerto Competition in 1971. Mr. Ness taught at Andrews University from 1979 to 1982 as a sabbatical replacement for C. Warren Becker. Following that position he and his wife were Co-Directors of Music at First Presbyterian Church, Ottumwa, Iowa where they chaired the National Undergraduate Organ Competition.
Upon moving to Massachusetts he assumed the position of Minister of Music at The College Church at Atlantic Union College, South Lancaster in fall 1987. Other churches he served during this time were Village Congregational of Whitinsville and First Baptist of Lexington. He remained at The College Church until January of 2001 when he became Minister of Music & Arts at First Baptist Church of Worcester. While at the College Church he developed five vocal choirs and two bell choirs.
Mr. Ness has performed on Iowa Public Television, 3ABN, National Public Radio as well as in Australia, Europe and the Caribbean. As an accompanist he has performed with many choral organizations. During 2003-2004 he completed a three recital series of 20th century organ music at First Baptist of Worcester and also performed Howard Hanson’s Concerto for Organ and Harp with the Atlantic Union College Orchestra under the direction of Stephen Tucker. William is a part of Synergy - a flute, harp and organ trio. Together they have performed several commissioned works by and for this combination by composers Gary Shocker, Lynn Trapp, and Peter Matthews. Mr. Ness appears on the recent 2CD set of Great Organs of Worcester. He teaches organ at the Pakachoag Music School of Greater Worcester.
